A message from beyond
Monday 2nd November 2009
Tears filled my eyes as I looked at the photo of two smiling women on a beach. It was me and my best mate, Laura Earnshaw, 47, on holiday in Thailand five years earlier. But I'd just had a phone call that had left me reeling.
Laura and I had met through work in 1996 and just clicked. We'd both loved travelling and in 2004 we'd gone to Thailand together. But disaster had struck when the Boxing Day tsunami hit. We'd been inland at the time, but our beach hut had been wrecked. 'If we'd stayed in that, we'd both have been killed,' I'd said, horrified. I hadn't been able to stop thinking about our lucky escape.
'If I'd died, I'd have tried to contact you from the other side,' I'd told Laura, but she'd rolled her eyes. 'I don't believe in that stuff,' she'd scoffed, but then she'd given me a hug.
'Oh, all right,' she'd said. 'If anything happens to me, I'll send a message from the other side.'
A few months later, we'd gone to Cancún in Mexico, where I'd bought us matching shell necklaces. 'Symbols of our friendship,' I'd smiled. 'You big softie,' she'd laughed.
Then, in April 2008, we'd started planning a trip to Egypt. But weeks passed with no word from her. Phone messages and emails had gone unanswered, and I'd started to worry.
Then, her mum had rung to tell me the awful news that Laura had died. Just after we came back from Mexico, she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer. Not wanting to worry everyone, she'd only told close family as she went through chemo. She was beating it too, until a blood clot in her lung killed her.
'I miss you so much,' I cried now, looking at our holiday pics. 'I wish you'd told me. I wish I'd had the chance to say goodbye.' I sobbed my way through her funeral, overwhelmed with grief for the friend who was like a sister to me.
Weeks went by in a blur, then I found out I was pregnant by my boyfriend, Richard Gallagher, 38. I was ecstatic but sad that Laura wouldn't meet my baby. Then, one afternoon, when I was six months gone, I spotted an advert for audience members for the psychic Derek Acorah's TV show. This could be Laura's chance to contact me.
So a few weeks later, I went with Richard to the TV studio, wearing the shell necklace I'd bought in Cancún and clutching a pair of Laura's sunglasses. The lights dimmed and Derek walked on stage.'I've got a 46-year-old woman here,' he said straight away.My stomach flipped.Laura was 46.When he said she had an illness but that wasn't what she died from, my hand shot up.
'It could be my friend,' I blurted. 'You were like sisters. You had a pact,' he went on, as my heart thumped. 'She says she's watching over your baby and she has a message for the man beside you,' he continued. I held Richard's hand.
'She wants him to put a big rock on your finger,' Derek said. 'Also, the stairs in your new house are dangerous.' 'Sounds just like Laura,' I said, amazed. We'd recently moved house and Richard had tripped down the stairs a few days earlier. 'Please tell her I love her and I say goodbye,' I told Derek. He nodded, then Laura was gone.
On the way home, a feeling of peace settled over me. My best friend had kept the promise
we'd made. A week later, Richard got down on one knee. 'Hearing that message made me think,' he said. 'Will you marry me?' 'Of course,' I said, tears welling up in my eyes.
Our baby boy is due any day and his middle name will be Laurence as a tribute to my friend.
I'll never get over losing Laura but at least I had a chance to say goodbye.